The Stage

London Hippodrome returns to cabaret

Published Tuesday 2 March 2004 at 13:50 by Sally Bramley

Cabaret and live entertainment is to return to the London Hippodrome this month after more than 20 years, The Stage can reveal.

The new leaseholders, who include one of the partners in West End club Chinawhite, have plans to stage Moulin Rouge-style shows with aerialists on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights with an option to extend to cabaret evenings during the week. The refurbished Frank Matcham building will be reopening next month.

A source said the four entrepreneurs who have taken over the lease wanted to take the venue back to its Talk Of The Town days.

He added: “At the moment, it is in the process of being refurbished. All the chrome has been taken back to what it was and the upholstery is red and gold velvet. The sound and lighting have been replaced too. I believe the plan is to reopen at the end of March with the option of renting it out for after-show parties and the like. For the opening night they are going to try to get a lot of the names that used to perform there to come back.”

The London Hippodrome was opened in January 1900 as a venue that could be used for circus, traditional theatre and - thanks to a 100,000 gallon water tank which is still under the floor - water spectacles. In 1909, Matcham was called back to the theatre to make some alterations after the popularity for circus and water shows dived. The stage and auditorium was enlarged and in 1910 the first UK performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was produced there.

In 1957 the Hippodrome was completely refurbished and renamed Talk of the Town, a cabaret venue where people could dine and dance into the early hours. The building was eventually sold on to Peter Stringfellow in the 1983 who turned it in to a nightclub and disco.

Luminar Leisure, the most recent leaseholder, decided not to renew its contract in September last year, forcing the Hippodrome to go dark. At the time Gasgoyne Holdings Limited, which owns the lease on the Leicester Square building, said putting on live theatre at the venue would be uneconomic and it was unlikely it would be converted for that purpose.

Save London’s Theatres Campaign chairman John Levitt said he was delighted live entertainment was returning the Hippodrome.

He said: “It is all something of an experiment but we are very pleased. It is good news. Ideally, we would like to see it going back to being a full time performance venue for musicals and what it was famous for but we will wait and see what happens. It is much closer to its original purpose than it was a few months ago.”